Kericho County banks on drones for delivery of medical supplies

The Zipline drone used by the county government of Kericho for supply to remote health facilities, essential drugs, blood, vaccines and other pharmaceutical and non- pharmaceutical supplies. [Nikko Tanui, Standard]

Kericho County has adopted the use of drones to deliver critical medical supplies across the county.

Governor Erick Mutai said the drones will deliver essential drugs, vaccines, blood, and other critical medical supplies to remote hospitals and in emergencies.

Speaking during the official launch of the drone delivery services at Sigowet Sub-County Hospital in Soin Constituency, Mutai said the drones will play a key role not only in saving the lives of patients in need of urgent medical supplies but also reduce transportation costs for the county's healthcare system.

He said the innovative initiative aims to enhance healthcare service delivery and save lives by providing timely medical support to areas with limited accessibility.

During the event, a consignment of drugs, vaccines, and blood was successfully delivered to the hospital within 20 minutes from the drone launch pad several kilometres away.

Kericho County Health Executive Brenda Bill-Bii noted that the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority has mapped 35 health facilities in the county where the drones will operate.

This mapping will facilitate efficient and reliable delivery of medical supplies to these facilities, ensuring that even the most remote areas can access critical health services.

In 2019, an American medical products delivery company said Kenya was on the right trajectory in joining other African countries like Ghana in using drones to deliver medical products.

Feller Rinaudo, the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Zipline International said that millions of people around the world die yearly because they could not promptly access the medicine they need.

Then, Rinaudo said Zipline was building the first logistics system on the planet to serve all people equally.

Rinaudo said the system was easy to work with, as health workers only needed to place orders by text message and receive their deliveries in 30 minutes, on average, from distribution centres.

"The drones fly autonomously and can carry 1.8 kilos of cargo, cruising at 110 kilometres an hour, and have an all-weather round trip range of 160 kilometres," said Rinaudo.

Using drones to transport crucial medicines or delicate samples for lab testing in remote or urban settings continues to become common in Kenya and other countries.

Quick and efficient transportation of lab specimens and drugs without affecting their quality has been one of the major challenges facing healthcare professionals, especially in remote and urban settings.

However, a research conducted in 2015 found that drones can successfully transport delicate human samples for laboratory testing quite well from remote regions without negatively affecting their quality.

The study by Ugandan and American researchers established that the accuracy of 33 per cent of the most common lab tests for humans was not affected even if drones transported the samples.